|Publication number||US7161483 B2|
|Application number||US 10/515,220|
|Publication date||9 Jan 2007|
|Filing date||17 Dec 2003|
|Priority date||26 Feb 2003|
|Also published as||CN1692348A, CN1692667A, CN100367265C, CN100446614C, US20050246408, WO2004077307A1, WO2004077307A8|
|Publication number||10515220, 515220, PCT/2003/1075, PCT/CN/2003/001075, PCT/CN/2003/01075, PCT/CN/3/001075, PCT/CN/3/01075, PCT/CN2003/001075, PCT/CN2003/01075, PCT/CN2003001075, PCT/CN200301075, PCT/CN3/001075, PCT/CN3/01075, PCT/CN3001075, PCT/CN301075, US 7161483 B2, US 7161483B2, US-B2-7161483, US7161483 B2, US7161483B2|
|Inventors||Hau Leung Stephen Chung|
|Original Assignee||Intexact Technologies Limited|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (13), Referenced by (42), Classifications (23), Legal Events (3)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This invention relates to an integrated programmable system for controlling the operation of electrical and/or electronic appliances of a premises, e.g. a house, a flat, or an office, and in particular such a system allowing the end user to program the mode and manner of operation of such appliances as he wishes.
With the advance of technology, home automation is a goal long sought to be achieved. Home automation will offer more freedom and autonomy to the disabled or elderly. Other members of the family will also benefit from the comfort and convenience offered by home automation.
Existing approaches to home automation are, however, proprietary in nature, and are non-extensible solutions that cannot accommodate the growth of the market. Each company or school has its own system and basic structure, which is not compatible with those of other companies or schools. In short, the systems and basic protocols are all vendor-specific.
In addition, existing home electrical appliances and electronic systems suffer from the following drawbacks and limitations:
It can thus be fairly said that all the existing electrical and/or electronic appliances operate on a stand-alone basis, with very limited, if any, capacity for integration with one another for concerted operation. In particular, there is no way for central control and operation of such appliances. Even if in cases where integration of a number of such appliances of the same manufacturer is allowed, such is all pre-designed and pre-determined by the manufacturer, and is thus a closed platform. It is thus not up to the end user to integrate the functions of the appliances as he or she wishes, according to his or her own need in view of the physical environment.
Furthermore, in conventional security systems, security zones are set and are usually geographically oriented, e.g. one zone per room. Sensor devices in various zones are connected to a central security panel. Each particular zone may be individually armed or disarmed. Upon triggering of any device, and if the zone is armed, a pre-determined action is taken, e.g. an alarm is given. There is, however, no assessment of the situation, i.e. each trigger of the relevant sensor is considered to be a security event requiring action. It is not possible to assign a rating on the importance of the alarm signals given by each individual sensor device. For example, it is usually difficult to program a control panel to trigger an alarm signal only when a detector and a sensor are both activated within a short term of each other, and even with more advanced control panels, more devices and complex relationships are rarely supported. False alarms are thus common.
It is also difficult to exclude a particular sequence of activities or a particular device from a security profile unless the device is wired in its own zone, in which case it can be individually disarmed. It is thus usually impossible to set the system such that, for example, it ignores the sequence of events in which the bedroom door is opened, followed by motion in the stairs and motion in the kitchen (which collectively signify someone getting up for a drink), but sounds alarms in a reversed sequence of events, which collectively signify a burglar breaking in from the kitchen and going into the bedroom. The conventional systems thus force the users to accept either an indiscriminating all-secured scenario or an all-unsecured scenario.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide an integrated programmable system for controlling the operation of electrical and/or electronic appliances of a premises, e.g. a house, an office, a factory, etc., in which the aforesaid shortcomings are mitigated, or at least to provide a useful alternative to the public.
According to the present invention, there is provided an integrated programmable system for controlling the operation of a plurality of electrical and/or electronic appliances of a premises, wherein said plurality of appliances are controllable electrically, electronically, wirelessly, by infrared and/or by radio frequency, wherein said system includes a central data processing apparatus connected with a digital communication backbone, wherein said central data processing apparatus is adapted to be connected with said appliances via said digital communication backbone, characterized in that said system includes sound producing means connected to a plurality of sources of audio signals for selectively outputting sound upon receipt of audio signals from at least one of said sources or outputting audible alarm prompts upon receipt of audio signals from said system.
Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of examples only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring firstly to
The fundamental design principles are:
As can be seen in
The smart controllers 108 may be implemented as book-sized form-factor industrial personal computers (PC). The actual hardware is PC-based, with a high-speed central processing unit (CPU), 256M random-access-memory (RAM) and a small (say 20–40 GB) hard disk drive, and a number of hardware devices implemented in the motherboard itself (e.g. 100 Base-T network, analog audio input/output, and 3D graphics). Each smart controller 108 runs a Microsoft® Embedded XP operating system. In each smart controller 108 is usually installed a PCI-based digital input/output (I/O) card with 24 to 84 digital inputs, although the system also supports many other brands of PCI-based, cPCI-based, ISA-based or RS232/RS485-based digital I/O modules on the market. Each digital I/O module card accepts switch inputs from a multitude of sensor devices connected to opto-isolated terminals on this card with straight electrical wires. Regulated power supplies provide 12V and 24V DC power, via electric wires, to these devices and equipment, e.g. motion detectors, smoke detectors, glass-break detectors, door and window contacts, gas and water sensors, etc. Contact switches are wired in serial with 12V DC supply into each input channel of the digital I/O card so that, when a device triggers (e.g. the relay switch closes), electricity at 12 volts will be supplied to the particular I/O channel.
Various devices and equipment may be connected directly to the smart controller 108 in the following manner:
Each connection to a device or equipment is unique, described by an address. A central database in the home server 106 stores all the addresses of the device or equipment connected to the system 100. A device address contains all the necessary information to enable the system 100 to connect to that particular device or equipment and to communicate with it. Such information may include the serial port number to which the device/equipment is connected, communications protocol speed, equipment model number, signal timings, data formats, etc.
As there are, at least in theory, unlimited types of devices or equipment, and different ways to communication with or control them, it is necessary for the smart controller system software to translate communication protocols and commands for individual devices or equipment into a uniform schema for easy adaptation into the system 100. Such program logics form the Unified Device Abstraction Layer, and the uniform schema format is the Unified Device Space.
A possible Unified Device Space format may be a simple device name plus a property name, as in the following Table 1:
Status of the power button
The current channel number
Current room temperature
Status of the power button
Status of the fan button
The system software translates actual device status and setting values into this Unified Device Space format. For instance, the TV may be a “legacy device”, i.e. one that does not have built-in digital communication capabilities. A light sensor may be connected to the digital I/O board to detect whether the TV power LED is turned on. If so, it will set the “PowerOn” property of the “TV” device to be true. A physical current sensor may be connected to an analog voltage meter to detect the volume level. In order to turn on/off the TV or to change channel/volume, an infrared emitter device may be called on to emit the relevant infrared remote-control codes. The air conditioner may be controlled by a communicating thermostat. In this case, finding out the current temperature and power status, etc. can be effected by sending the relevant text command via the serial cable connected to the thermostat through its RS232 port and waiting for a response, in a format specified by the air conditioner's communications protocol. In the first case, i.e. the case with the “legacy” TV, the system software translates a number of physical measurements into logic values represented in the Unified Device Space. In the second case, the system software translates the air conditioner's communications protocol into values in the Unified Device Space.
The benefit of the Unified Device Space is that, within the present system 100, all other system modules can work with a uniform way of controlling, measuring and detecting devices and their statuses and settings. To a system customization script (see below), the user simply has to issue:
As to the common digital communication backbone, such may be of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) or FR/ATM (Frame Relay/Asynchronous Transfer Mode) or a virtual private network (VPN), over a cable under 100 Base-T (Fast Ethernet) standard (IEEE 802.3u), a wireless local area network (LAN), or fibre optics.
The system 100 may be connected with the Internet via integrated services digital network (ISDN) standard, cables, digital subscriber lines (DSL), etc. The system 100 includes a Primary User Interface which allows an end user to interact with the Unified Devices Abstraction Layer, including the home server 106 of the system 100, and via Direct3D, which is an application program interface for manipulating and displaying three-dimensional objects, for programming, setting, resetting and/or changing the manner of operation of the various components and appliances connected with the system 100. Some other acronyms appearing in
A software device is a device that exists only in software and has no necessary hardware to match. Such may include speech generators, which exist in software implementation only, which take simple text and generate sound signals. These sound signals may then be fed to an amplifier to produce the sound.
A virtual device is an appliance which pretends to be an actual hardware device, even though in reality it only simulates such a device by performing appropriate actions on another hardware device. An example of virtual device usage can be found in a PABX system. The PABX hardware supports a number of central-office phone lines, plus a number of extension phones. If virtual devices are designed for such a PABX system, it may include virtual phone devices that simulate regular simple phone lines, even though in reality it calls upon the PABX system to perform the duties. The user of such a virtual phone device may not need to know that the phone is not a regular phone line, but part of a PABX system.
The central home server 106 consists of a high-speed PC-based system with a hard disk storage of 160 GB and RAM of 512 MB, connected to the digital communication backbone. It runs the Microsoft® Server 2003 operating system, and is physically connected to all other smart controllers 108 in the same system 100 via a TCP/IP network. Inside the home server 106 is also run the Microsoft® Data Engine (MSDE), which is a relational database engine storing all the device setup information (addresses) for the entire system 100. The home server 106 is also connected to an X10 automation controller, via RS232, that is in turn plugged into the electrical mains. The X10 automation controller acts as a bridge to control a number of devices and equipment which understand the X10 power-line carrier protocol. The home server 106 also contains the Microsoft® Internet Information Server (IIS), together with a web-application writing in ASP (ActiveX Server Pages) that allows a user to control the system via a standard web browser.
The home server 106 has sufficient hard disk space to store digitized audio files (for whole-premises audio), digitized video files (for video-on-demand), video and audio recordings (e.g. from close circuit TV cameras, telephony answering messages, etc.), and other system set-up files in network-shared folders. The smart controllers 108 may request these files when they need to play back audio or video in a particular room or house area. The homer server 106 may also act double as a smart controller for a number of rooms and areas in the premises.
The home server 106 automatically runs system software upon start-up that does the following:
As an example, when an occupant of the premises wants to enter the premises closed by a locked door, he/she places his/her finger on a fingerprint scanner connected to a smart controller 108. The smart controller 108 will then poll the fingerprint scanner for images periodically and detects the new image. It understands that this represents a change of value for a particular status of the fingerprint scanner, i.e. the previous image was blank. It then sends a notification to the home server 106, in Unified Device Space format, notifying it that the device “Fingerprint” has changed the property “Image” to the new image. Upon receipt of this notification, the homer server 106 will check through its database and notices that, when the “Image” property has changed for the device “Fingerprint”, then the customized script “CheckFingerprint” should be run. It then executes the script “CheckFingerprint”, which first checks the fingerprint with fingerprints stored in the database, to determine a match. If a match is found, it sends a request to set the “Open” property of the device “DoorLock” to “true”. The smart controller 108 handling the door lock, upon receiving this commands, translates the command into the appropriate physical action, which is to turn on a digital output channel in the Digital I/O board to energize a relay switch that sends 12 volts to the electric door strike, opening the door.
The following is a sample script suitable for controlling the opening or otherwise of the front gate of the premises, upon scanning of a fingerprint image by the fingerprint scanner, receipt of data from a smart card, or entry of code via a keypad, as well as other actions of various devices and equipment of the system following opening of the front gate.
‘ Check identity of person
Dim Name As String
Select Case TriggerSource
‘ Fingerprint scanned
Name = IntelliHome.LookupUser(UserID)
If Not (Name Is Nothing) Then
‘ Track location
IntelliHome.LocationTracking(“FRONTYARD”) = UserID
‘ Fingerprint not found
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_Speakers”, “TextToSpeech”) = “Fingerprint not
recognized. Access denied.”
‘ Keypad code entry or access card
Dim CanEnter As Boolean = False
‘ Is the key code (or access card) allowed to open the front gate?
If IntelliHome.CheckSecurity(KeyValue, “OPENFRONTGATE”) Then
Dim contact As Integer = IntelliHome.LookupCode(KeyValue)
If contact >= 0 Then
Name = IntelliHome.LookupUser(contact)
IntelliHome.LocationTracking(“FRONTYARD”) = contact
Name = “ ”
CanEnter = True
If Not CanEnter Then
If Trigger.TriggerProperty = “CARD” Then
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_Speakers”, “TextToSpeech”) = “Invalid
access card. Access denied.”
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_Speakers”, “TextToSpeech”) = “Invalid
entry code. Access denied.”
‘ Disarm perimeter - but retain security of inside
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_Speakers”, “TextToSpeech”) = “Welcome home, ” & Name & “.
Perimeter is disarmed. Please enter.”
IntelliHome.DisarmSecurity(“FRONTYARD”) ‘ Disarm security in the front yard
IntelliHome.DisarmSecurity(“GARDEN”) ‘ Disarm security in the back garden
IntelliHome.DisarmSecurity(“GARAGE”) ‘ Disarm security in the garage
‘ Open front gate
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_FrontGate”, “Open”) = True
‘ Turn on lights if after 6 pm or too dark
Dim LightsOn As Boolean = False
If System.DateTime.Now.Hour < 7 Or System.DateTime.Now.Hour > 17 Or
IntelliHome.Devices(“LightSensor”, “Light”) > 0.5 Then
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_FloodLights”, “On”) = True
LightsOn = True
‘ Turn lights off and close the gate after one minute
If LightsOn Then IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_FloodLights”, “On”) = False
‘ Close front gate
IntelliHome.Devices(“FRONTYARD_FrontGate”, “Open”) = True
The speakers are connected to an amplifier, which is in turn connected to the digital audio output port of the smart controller 108. Audio signals produced by the smart controllers 108 (e.g. music, or system alert messages) is amplified and outputted via the speakers. If the smart controller 108 controls more than one set of speakers, then separate digital sound cards are installed in the smart controllers 108, each sound card being connected to a separate amplifier connected to each set of speakers. There may be a separate local high-end Hi-Fi system in some rooms, e.g. the entertainment room. In this case, both the speaker line outputs from the amplifier connected to the smart controller 108 and the speaker line outputs from the local Hi-Fi system are connected to the inputs of a relay switch (the local system to the normally-closed input, and the smart controller 108 to the normally-open input), with the output of the relay switch connected to the actual speakers. The relay switch is activated by an audio signal sensor, which is connected to the analog audio output of the smart controller 108.
By way of such an arrangement, when no audio signal is played by the smart controller 108, the relay switch will stay in the normally-closed position, which connects the local Hi-Fi system to the speakers. Upon audio signals generated by the smart controller 108, the audio signal sensor will energize the relay switch, which will then switch to the normally-open position, disconnecting the local Hi-Fi system and connecting the smart controller amplifier with the speakers. Thus, any audio output from the smart controller 108 will override audio output from the local system. This is crucial as certain system-generated audio output (e.g. alert messages, warning messages) must be heard and should thus override any other audio streams currently playing. When the smart controller 108 stops outputting audio signals, the audio signal sensor will de-energize, and the relay switch will return to the normally-closed position, thus disconnecting the smart controller 108 and re-connecting the local Hi-Fi system with the speakers.
The benefits of such an arrangement include:
By way of such an arrangement, the security feature may be constructed of components of other existing systems, e.g. a motion detector of a security system, a speaker of an audio-visual system, existing lighting system, and a telephone of a telephony system, etc.
The smart controller 108 will maintain communication with the devices/equipment. The equipment may send a notification message automatically when a state or a setting has changed, e.g. the state of a thermostat will change when there is a change in the temperature. The equipment, e.g. digital I/O modules, may on the other hand require periodic polling to discover its current status and settings, which are then compared with the system's internal copy of the states and settings in order to discover whether any of them has changed.
The system 100 will then continuously check if there has been any change in the state of the various devices and equipment (step 418). If there has been any change in a state or setting of a device/equipment, the smart controller 108 to which the device/equipment is connected will send information to the home server 106, such that other programs or other smart controllers may act on this information. The device state will be mapped to the UDAL value (step 420), and the UDAL value will then be updated in the server (step 422). After this updating (step 422), or if there has not been any change in the state, the system will then check if there has been any UDAL change (step 424). If there has been any UDAL change, the UDAL value will be mapped to the device state (step 426), and the device state set accordingly (step 428). The translators will then convert the state change to specific control protocol (step 430) for operation of the appliances or devices connected with the smart controllers 108. In particular, the translators can translate proprietary means of controlling individual devices into standard interfaces, thereby to allow the system 100 to control and accommodate with electrical and/or electronic devices in a uniform manner. When instructed by the system 100, the smart controller 108 will act upon such request to control or initiate actions on the device/equipment. The particular means to accomplish such actions depend on the brand and model of the equipment, and the communication protocol used by that piece of equipment. The smart controller 108 also puts up a user interface from the graphics chip, with its output connected directly to a visual output, e.g. a TV set, to enable the user to control the system 100 using the TV.
With the present invention, it is possible to construct and implement a threat-based security system. In such a system, “event” is defined as change in the state of an input service, e.g. a sensor; “group” is defined as a collection of similar events which are regarded as forming a coherent set, e.g. in a security zone; “threat” is determined by reference to the amount and nature of security danger represented by an event, given the sequence and threat levels of previous events; and “action” is the activity to be carried out when a particular type of threat has exceeded a predetermined threshold level, which may be governed by the sequence and nature of previous detected events.
In such a system, events are detected when a particular state of an input service/sensor has changed, e.g. a window sensor changes from being closed to being open. The event so detected is that mapped to a set of groups that contain that particular type of event, e.g. window being opened. Each mapped group has an intrinsic priority level, and the group list is then sorted according to the priority levels, allowing more general groups to be overridden by more specific groups, e.g. allowing all window openings to be monitored except a particular window.
The group of the highest priority is then mapped to a set of threats that would trigger when the group is activated. Each threat will generate a corresponding threat level number and a threat type, depending on the particular event and the sequence of previous events, if any. For example, a window being opened may be particularly suspicious if followed by motion detected by a motion detector close to the window. However, the suspicion level will be less if opening of the window follows motion inside the house, which may indicate someone in the house opening the window for fresh air.
The highest threat level is taken as the threat level of this particular event, since the event may mean different levels of threat for different areas/situations, and only the highest threat level is considered. The system will monitor the current threat level, and the threat level of the current event will be added to the current threat level, under which the degree of threat to the premises is continuously monitored and assessed. If, at any time, the resultant current threat level exceeds a pre-determined level, then one or more predetermined actions will be taken, e.g. an alarm is triggered and/or lights in the garden are turned on. The current threat level will be reduced by a predetermined percentage after the passing of a pre-set period of time between the events, such that events happening between a long period of time are considered to pose less threat than events happening between very short period of time, say, one happening immediately after the other.
As an example, the following Table 1 gives the hypothetical threat level assigned to a list of exemplary events detected by sensors of the security system:
Motion in the garden
Kitchen window opened
Kitchen window opened within five (5)
minutes of motion in the garden
Motion in the kitchen
Motion in the kitchen within two (2) minutes
of kitchen window opened
Motion in the master bedroom
Motion in the study where a safe is kept
Let us assume that the system is set such that:
In this example, if motion is detected in the garden, the threat level will be 1. If no event is detected for five minutes, the threat level will fall to 0.9, and subsequently to 0.81 if no event is detected for another five minutes. Assume that within 2 minutes of motion in the garden, the kitchen window is detected as opened, the threat level will be 4 (i.e. 1+3). If, then, within 30 seconds of opening of the kitchen window, motion is detected in the kitchen, the threat level will rise to 8 (i.e. 4+4). If, within, five minutes, motion is detected either the master bedroom or the study where a safe is kept, the threat level will rise to 10 or 12. In either case, an alarm will be sounded. If, however, motion is detected in the master bedroom after, say, 6 minutes, the threat level will only be 9.2 (i.e. 8×90%+2), thus not enough to set off the alarm. If, on the other hand, motion is instead detected in the study where a safe is kept after, say, 10 minutes, the threat level will be 10.48 (i.e. 8×90%×90%+4), in which case the alarm will still be set off.
Take another example, if the sequence of events is different, say motion in the study where the safe is kept, followed within five minutes by motion in the kitchen, then followed within five minutes by opening of the kitchen, then followed within five minutes by motion in the garden, the threat level will only be 9, which is not enough to set off the alarm.
The advantages and characteristics of such a threat-based security systems include:
With such an arrangement, each individual event may be categorized in a more intelligent manner, based on the actual degree of threat that it poses. It is, of course, the case that some events are more significant that others. False alarms will be reduced. Security breach events can be distinguished from mere warnings, thus focusing security attention to the actually important incidents. Different response actions can be triggered, depending on the degree of threat, thus ensuring that appropriate actions be taken in response to the relevant incidents.
With the above arrangement of an integrated programmable system according to the present invention, the following functions can be achieved:
It can be seen that various existing and future electrical and/or electronic appliances may be integrated into this system because of the use of existing standard interfaces. It is also up to the end user to incorporate new appliances into the system according to his or her own need, taking into account the physical environment of the premises. Since the system can be connected with such appliances via different existing standard interfaces, a large variety of such appliances can be integrated, thus greatly enhancing the ability of the system to accommodate different sorts of appliances of different manufacturers. Simply stated, a system according to the present invention is an open platform with virtually unlimited possibility of extension and modification.
It should be understood that the above only illustrates examples whereby the present invention may be carried out, and that various modifications and/or alterations may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the invention. Although the above examples are illustrated with home-oriented examples, it should of course be understood that the invention is equally applicable to other premises, e.g. offices, factories, hospitals, etc.
It should also be understood that certain features of the invention, which are, for clarity, described in the context of separate embodiments, may be provided in combination in a single embodiment. Conversely, various features of the invention which are, for brevity, described in the context of a single embodiment, may also be provided separately or in any appropriate sub-combinations.
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|U.S. Classification||340/531, 340/3.1, 340/506, 340/6.11, 340/539.25, 340/12.53, 340/4.37|
|International Classification||G06F15/16, H04Q7/38, G05B, G08B1/00, H04L29/08, H04L12/28|
|Cooperative Classification||H04L67/322, H04L67/125, H04L69/329, H04L12/2805, H04L12/2803|
|European Classification||H04L29/08N11M, H04L12/28H1, H04L29/08A7, H04L12/28H, H04L29/08N31Q|
|22 Nov 2004||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: INTEXACT TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED, CHINA
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:CHUNG, HAU LEUNG STEPHEN;REEL/FRAME:016804/0888
Effective date: 20041105
|28 Jun 2010||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|11 Jun 2014||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8